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arXiv:quant-ph/0506180 · Physical Review Letters

Popescu-Rohrlich Correlations as a Unit of Nonlocality

Jonathan Barrett, Stefano Pironio

Published Sep 29, 2005• 182 citations
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Abstract

A set of nonlocal correlations that have come to be known as a Popescu-Rohrlich (PR) box suggest themselves as a natural unit of nonlocality, much as a singlet is a natural unit of entanglement. We present two results relevant to this idea. One is that a wide class of multipartite correlations can be simulated using local operations on PR boxes only. We show this with an explicit scheme, which has the interesting feature that the number of PR boxes required is related to the computational resources necessary to represent a function defining the multipartite box. The second result is that there are quantum multipartite correlations, arising from measurements on a cluster state, that cannot be simulated with n PR boxes, for any n.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.95.140401

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A set of nonlocal correlations that have come to be known as a Popescu-Rohrlich (PR) box suggest themselves as a natural unit of nonlocality, much as a singlet is a natural unit of entanglement. We present two results relevant to this idea. One is that a wide class of multipartite correlations can be simulated using local operations on PR boxes only. We show this with an explicit scheme, which has the interesting feature that the number of PR boxes required is related to the computational resources necessary to represent a function defining the multipartite box. The second result is that there are quantum multipartite correlations, arising from measurements on a cluster state, that cannot be simulated with n PR boxes, for any n.
Imagine a task in which a group of separated players aim to simulate a statistic that violates a Bell inequality. Given measurement choices the players shall announce an output based solely on the results of local operations---which they can discuss before the separation---on shared random data and shared copies of a so-called unit correlation. In the first part of this paper we show that in such a setting the simulation of any bipartite correlation, not containing the possibility of signaling, can be made arbitrarily accurate by increasing the number of shared Popescu-Rohrlich (PR) boxes. This establishes the PR box as a simple asymptotic unit of bipartite nonlocality. In the second part we study whether this property extends to the multipartite case. More generally, we ask if it is possible for separated players to asymptotically reproduce any nonsignaling statistic by local operations on bipartite unit correlations. We find that nonadaptive strategies are limited by a constant accuracy and that arbitrary strategies on nnn resource correlations make a mistake with a probability greater or equal to c/nc/nc/n, for some constant ccc.
One of the most intriguing features of quantum physics is the non-locality of correlations that can be obtained by measuring entangled particles. Recently, it has been noticed that non-locality can be studied without reference to the Hilbert space formalism. I review here the properties of the basic mathematical tool used for such studies, the so called Popescu-Rohrlich-box, in short PR-box. Among its feats, are the simulation of the correlations of the singlet and of other non-local probability distributions. Among its features, the "anomaly of non-locality" and a great power for information-theoretical tasks. Among its failures, the impossibility of reproducing all multi-partite distributions and the triviality of the allowed dynamics.
One of the most intriguing features of quantum physics is the non‐locality of correlations that can be obtained by measuring entangled particles. Recently, it has been noticed that non‐locality can be studied without reference to the Hilbert space formalism. I review here the properties of the basic mathematical tool used for such studies, the so called Popescu‐Rohrlich‐box, in short PR‐box. Among its feats, are the simulation of the correlations of the singlet and of other non‐local probability distributions. Among its features, the “anomaly of non‐locality” and a great power for information‐theoretical tasks. Among its failures, the impossibility of reproducing all multi‐partite distributions and the triviality of the allowed dynamics.
In a no-signaling world, the outputs of a nonlocal box cannot be completely predetermined, a feature that is exploited in many quantum information protocols exploiting nonlocality, such as device-independent randomness generation and quantum key distribution. This relation between nonlocality and randomness can be formally quantified through the min-entropy, a measure of the unpredictability of the outputs that holds conditioned on the knowledge of any adversary that is limited only by the no-signaling principle. This quantity can easily be computed for the noisy Popescu-Rohrlich (PR) box, the paradigmatic example of nonlocality. In this paper, we consider the min-entropy associated to several copies of noisy PR boxes. In the case where nnn noisy PR boxes are implemented using nnn noncommunicating pairs of devices, it is known that each PR box behaves as an independent biased coin: the min-entropy per PR box is constant with the number of copies. We show that this does not hold in more general scenarios where several noisy PR boxes are implemented from a single pair of devices, either used sequentially nnn times or producing nnn outcome bits in a single run. In this case, the min-entropy per PR box is smaller than the min-entropy of a single PR box, and it decreases as the number of copies increases.